When President Barrack Obama stated in his recent State of the Union address that one avenue to advance the economy was to increase U.S. agricultural exports, I cringed. Right out of Milton Friedman, export agriculture is the neo-liberal free market capitalist approach to agriculture that, if anything, has been successful in destroying family farmers. Obama’s announcement was yet another death-knell to the world’s family farmers. It was a gift to corporate agribusiness. It meant yet another wave of family farmers throughout the world being forced off the land resulting in another period of rural repression and dislocation. Don’t think when you read this that the scenario is somewhere other than the United States. This is a U.S. story as well.
NFFC President Wins James Beard Foundation Leadership Award
We are pleased to announce that NFFC President, Ben Burkett was awarded the 2014 James Beard Foundation Leadership Award on October 27th. The award was given to Ben primarily for his work with The Federation of Southern Cooperatives and their Land Assistance Fund, which aims to enhance and stabilize income for family farms across the south.
Food Sovereignty Award Coverage: Column for The Progressive Populist
Every year since 1986, the Norman Borlaug fan club, made up of the big winners in the Green Revolution, has awarded a prize to some corporate tiller of the field. The “World Food Prize” is headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa in the former public library building. From this modest address, the chemical producers, giant combine builders, soybean processors and hog owners give the award mostly to researchers who have helped build the system of patented seeds and chemical inputs—a system that excludes small farmers and has convinced the rest of us that chemically-flavored soy paste and corn sweeteners are nutrition.
Precision Agriculture and the “Agro-Police State”
A Food First writer suggests Monsanto may have a larger hand in International Agricultural Decision-making than the FAO with the growing influence of precision agriculture.
The Fallacy of Feeding the World
I heard someone talking about our (the USA’s) duty to “feed the world”. I have a real problem with this, who gave us this mandate?
Save us from “Sound Science”
The term “sound science” really creeps me out, that is not a secret. Several months ago I wrote a piece called The Sound Science of Deception, resting my case, but a during recent discussion of federal research funding, there it was again, in USDA.
Supporting Dairy Farmers is Part of a Balanced Diet
Eat fat! That is the message delivered in new studies that suggest Americans have wrongfully avoided fat in their diets for decades. In an effort to deal with the growing epidemic of heart disease, scientists turned their focus to cutting fat from diets. Many of those studies failed to control for major heart disease contributors like smoking, stress, sedentary lifestyles, and obesity. Nonetheless, the war against fat had begun.
Mad Cows, Fat Cats, and Chlorinated Chickens: NFFC protests TAFTA
This week has been a jam packed week here in DC. In addition to the Appropriations process and a few conferences (more on those later), the fifth round of negotiations for the EU-US trade deal (TAFTA, the TransAtlantic Free Trade Agreement, or TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) happened on the George Mason University School of Law campus.
What’s Happening to the Bees?
“Are Your Delicious, Healthy Almonds Killing Bees?” That is the question posed by Tom Philpott last week in Mother Jones. As the acreage in monocropped almonds in California has grown, so too has the reliance on “pollinator services”. Wild honeybees simply cannot pollinate the vast number of almond trees growing in California’s almond country anymore. This year between 15 and 25 percent of beehives in almond groves have experienced “severe” damage says the Pollinator Stewardship Council.
In The Spring—
“In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love”, or so Tennyson told us. But in the corn belt it seems, that rather than thoughts of love, the thoughts of many turn to crop protection chemicals, or in common language, herbicides and insecticides. Whether one is applying them to crops or hoping to avoid their toxic fumes and drift, pesticides will soon be in the air.
USFRA Promotes Agribusiness, Not Farmers
The USFRA was created in 2011 as a trade association uniting Big Ag corporations (such as Monsanto, Cargill and DuPont Pioneer) and marketing groups for commodities (including corn, soybeans, beef and pork). Take note: some of these groups are farmer-funded, but in reality, farmers have no choice but to fund them, and it is often at their own expense.
The Battle for the Capitol – Solidarity within the Food System
On April 28th, NFFC and Iowa CCI staff joined ROC United, National Domestic Workers Alliance, the National People’s Action, and the National Organization for Women to show Congress that we are fed up with them favoring corporations over people. The march timed to coincide with the National Restaurant Association’s annual lobby day. “The other NRA” has worked to block minimum minimum wage increases, paid sick day legislation, and kept the federal tipped minimum wage at $2.13 since 1991. The NRA also lobbied against sustainable farming practices, farm animal welfare rules, and efforts to label the nutritional quality of foods in restaurants.